Mystery Plug in the engine bay...

When exploring the engine bay - the engine in my van is the 1.9DG - I found the following 'mystery plug'....

It was hooked up on the back of the alternator, with nothing plugged into it. A quick posting on the forum was rewarded with an explanation - it is a diagnostic plug, used by VW to determine that the engine is at 'Top Dead Centre' (TDC).

Not a problem and nothing to be concerned about, it was clipped back safely out of the way of the belt and forgotten about.

Honeymoon over? Brake vacuum hose splits..

Running an old VW is not like a modern car. With even the most rudimentary servicing, modern cars happily tick on for thousands of miles with little risk of breakdown. Sure, there are exceptions, but I think that it is fair to say that when you turn the ignition key in a modern car, you assume that it will start, no apprehension.

We had enjoyed 100% reliability with Jasper (excluding the fuel 'issue' of day one), until about a week into ownership. After dinner at a friends, we jumped in for the 6 mile journey home and started the engine. It started up fine, but was very lumpy and not idling at all well.

Upon reaching the first junction, it stalled as soon as the clutch was depressed as we stopped at the give-way line. It started up again, we carried on for 300m or so to a set of traffic lights, depressed the clutch and it stalled again. Only sitting with right foot nudging the revs up alleviated the issue. This carried on for more or less the whole journey home and I arrived back, parked up and felt a little like I'd lost the love.

I hate go to bed thinking about the what, why and where-for of issues, so before hitting the sack I logged on to Club 80-90 and searched through the forum for similar issues. I quickly found a few references to the brake servo vacuum hose in the engine bay. The symptoms that fellow T3 owners described seemed to match perfectly. Confident that this would be the problem, I logged off.

The next day I lifted the engine bay cover and inspected the hose. It was an original VW steel braided rubber hose and looked a little the worse for wear.

You can see it here, marked with the yellow outline and arrow:

A quick browse of the Brickwerks shop found this replacement vacuum hose. It was duly ordered.

Fitting the hose is easy enough, but please take note - WEAR THICK GLOVES WHEN REMOVING OLD HOSE. The hose is braided internally with steel. Over time this will have rusted. When you grab the hose with bare hands and yank, it might slip through your grip and jam shards of sharp, rusty steel into your flesh, tearing it to shreds. How do I know this - I have the scars that prove I learned the hard way!

Once you have the old hose off (it will take some twisting, pulling, swearing) then you can slip the new one on, tighten up the clamps and go make yourself a cup of tea in reward for a job well done.

Here's my new silicon hose installed - I chose the blue one:

This had an immediate and marked improvement on my van and I would suggest that for just over £6, it is worth anyone doing.

What's in a name?

Ok, I'll get this over with now and say that I have never before felt the need to name any of the vehicles that I have owned down the years. I don't object to the practice of doing so, I just didn't have the inclination to do it myself.

With old VWs, things seem to be a little different. Whether this is a consequence of the character that old vehicles like this display, or indeed of the character of the owners of such old vehicles, I don't know. What I do know is that our T3 has been christened 'Jasper'.

The name was suggested by my wife - the connection goes... van is orange... what else is orange... carrots... hmmm.. Jasper Carrot... ah.. just Jasper...

And so it was. It suits it (him?) well and that is all he is known as now, certainly in my family anyway.

It is worth noting that since we bought Jasper, we have also bought a VW Bora. That is known as 'the Bora' and is likely to remain so.

Excitement - tinged with apprehension

I'll admit to displaying a childish excitement when the big day came to go and pick up the van. That day was May 22 2010. The journey up to South Wigston to collect was painless on the train and the previous owner, Tom, was at the station to collect us as promised. A quick journey to his house, a drink and the sorting of the payment and paperwork later and the deal was completed. Keys in hand, rucksack in the back and it was time to go.

The van fired up first time, but had hardly any fuel in, but Tom pointed us in the direction of the closest garage and we set off. It was a hot, sunny day and all was good in the world.

Five minutes later and we pulled into the local petrol station. I hopped out, undid the fuel cap, inserted the filler spout into the neck of the van, squeezed the trigger and watched the pounds and pence spin around at an alarming rate. As we had a long journey home, a fill up made good sense. Once the trigger clicked off, I did my usual rounding up of the total before removing the filler and placing it back into the pump. At this point, my wife noticed fear and panic work its way across my previously smiley face.... the van was leaking petrol onto the forecourt at what seemed like an alarming rate.

I furiously grabbed the bucket of sand from next to the pump and, with my head full of phases like 'what have I done' and 'it's a lemon', shovelled the contents under the van. Once I'd created a beach where once there was only concrete, I sheepishly wandered into the shop, paid £65 for the fuel and beat a hasty retreat. Once back at the van I could see that the fuel had stopped dripping altogether, so with some relief I put all ideas of calling the AA to the back of my mind, fired the wasser-boxer engine into life and drove out of the garage to the nearest place that I could safely stop and have a proper look under the van (away from the inquisitive glares of what felt like half of South Wigston, but was probably only half a dozen people at the garage).

The inspection at the layby confirmed that fuel had stopped leaking. I had read about fuel leaks prior to buying on the excellent pages of the Club 8090 forums, so I assumed the worst case was a rusty top of tank and made a decision to carry on home - and not fill to the brim again.

The rest of the journey was relatively trouble-free. I quickly discovered that a T3 van is a very nice place to be on a long motorway slog - I sat unstressed in lane one most of the time and let the world get on with its hectic-self. We got a wave from an AA man in a new T5 van a numerous double-takes from passing cars, something we'd get used to due to the rather bright colour of our van, especially on a bright, sunny day!

The only other issue we found was that it was impossible to turn the heating to 'off', which given it was late-20s centigrade outside made for a rather warm trip - windows had to be wide open!

We stopped in Northampton on the way to have tea with some friends, taking the following photo in their garden.

Northampton to Surrey passed by without a hitch and we took the opportunity to show off our new aquisition one more time by visiting some friends in Dorking. Parking in front of their house with the evening sun reflecting off the side of the van, causing their living room to glow, was amusing to say the least.

This is the van on day one, parked in Dorking.

Why a T3 Van?

The decision to buy a VW van came in 2010. Having had some fantastic campervan trips in New Zealand, we decided it was high time that we explored more of the UK - and a van was the best way to do this.

I'd hankered after a VW van for years. Reading magazines and visiting shows left me with the desire to one day own a Split or Bay, but the prices had reached a level whereby all but the most tired examples of these required a huge investment. We decided that the miles we wanted to go warranted something more modern and reliable.

A friend of mine was a T4 fan and having been in his on many a surf trip to Cornwall, I decided this was the way forward, so the search was on. Many hours of trawling the Internet duly followed - viewing examples from ex-AA vans through to Caravelles. Over time though, I started to wonder if a T4 was what I really wanted. Yes, they are great vans, but I decided that character was important too. A friend had owned a couple of T3 vans, which I liked, so I expanded the van search. The Volkswagen T3 Transporter (known also as the T25 in the UK) was now the main focus.

Lots more on line searching followed until one day a browse of the Car and Classic website resulted in a 1985 T3 panel van for sale near Leicester appearing in the results list. As it happened, we were going to be in the area the following weekend, so I arranged a viewing and test drive.

Armed with several 'buyers guides' from Club 80-90 and Brickwerks, I went over all aspects of the van before taking it for a test drive. It was all great. Now, I have to admit that buying the first van you view is normally a really bad idea, but my heart got the better of my head! We didn't commit on the spot and drove back to Surrey whilst deliberating the plus and minus points. Not long after arriving home the decision was made and one short phone call later I had committed to the purchase. That was in April 2010.